Search: drones
13 Mar Reckoning With Indifference: A Call to Reinforce International Humanitarian Law
...climate shifts, and existing socio-economic fragilities, organizations might better anticipate and mitigate the worst humanitarian fallout, whether it is famine, mass displacement, or renewed conflict. Unmanned Weapons and the Lure of “Risk-Free” Warfare One of the most striking evolutions in contemporary conflict is the growing use of drones and other unmanned systems. While still not as widespread as small arms or improvised explosives, drones are becoming cheaper, more accessible and thus no longer the preserve of powerful states. Proponents argue that drones can reduce risk to military personnel and sometimes...
01 Nov Fourth Annual Symposium on Pop Culture and International Law: Representation of Ethical and Moral Dilemmas of Drone Warfare on Screen – An Analysis of ‘Good Kill’ and ‘Eye in The Sky’
...during the 2nd World War. However, over time as technology advances, the methods by which war and conflict now occur has shifted. In particular, post-9/11 and the subsequent ‘war on terror’, there may not necessarily be a ground occupation with the increased use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or ‘drones’, being used to conduct operations. The war film genre also therefore needs to adapt, with two films standing out – Alex Niccol’s Good Kill (2014) and Gavin Hood’s Eye in the Sky (2015). These films are distinctive in presenting a different...
25 Jul Missiles and Messages: Characterizing the Use of Force between Iran and Israel
...traced back to April 1, 2024, when an airstrike near the Iranian embassy in Damascus killed a high-ranking officer of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). In retaliation, Iran launched an unprecedented direct attack on Israeli territory on April 13, deploying a barrage of missiles and drones. This was followed by an Israeli strike on an Iranian missile platform in Isfahan on April 19. The targeted killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, and later the assassination of the Secretary General of Hezbollah Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, provoked...
15 Sep Where the Miss Lands: Kuhestak, Minab and the Precautions that Come Before the Balance
...are questions the review should answer. Observation: Central Command is reviewing footage from drones that were monitoring the area; if a gathering of 150 people was detectable, the assessment had to be revisited and, if the revised expectation of civilian harm engaged it, the duty of suspension under Article 57(2)(b); if it was not detectable, the review should explain what the surveillance could show. Geometry: the United States’ own collateral damage methodology treats delivery heading as a way of mitigating both fragmentation and the risk created by delivery error, alongside...
15 Jul Symposium on PMSCs: When Surveillance Goes Private
...with it the provision of private surveillance services have been growing at such a rapid rate that it has spread everywhere around us. These highly intrusive surveillance tools, once reserved exclusively for governments’ use, are now increasingly used by private actors. With often transnational and opaque operations, surveillance services provided by private military and security companies (PMSCs) are a regulator’s jigsaw puzzle. Many struggle to define what ‘private surveillance services’ even include. Is it traditional PMSCs using drones or offering cybersecurity services? Is it data brokers? Is it spyware vendors?...
12 Mar AWS in the Cross-Hairs: Data Centres as Targets
[Professor Luke Moffet is chair of human rights and international humanitarian law at Queen’s University Belfast and author of Algorithms of War (BUP 2026). Alannah Travers is a PhD student at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) School of Law in collaboration with the Ceasefire Centre for Civilian Rights, working on Algorithmic Warfare and Civilian Harm.] On the 3rd March 2026 it was reported that Iran had hit two Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centres in the United Arab Emirates with drones and had damaged another in Bahrain – believed to be...
29 Nov Do AI Decision Support Systems ‘Support’ Humans in Military Decision-Making on the Use of Force?
...such as drones or loitering munitions, but also integrating them into targeting decision-making processes as part of AI-based decision support systems (AI DSS), which can be used to recognize patterns in substantial amounts of data, predict scenarios, or recommend possible courses of action to military commanders. The complex and multi-dimensional process of military targeting can integrate AI systems at several stages which might be directly or indirectly informing the use of force. Reports about uses of AI DSS are coming from war zones around the globe, such as the latest...
28 Jul What Will Gaza Become After Genocide? Law and the Regime of Managed Suffering (Part 2)
...Europe’s existential crisis provided little succour. Even in this moment of supposed legal assertiveness, they remained trapped in international law’s theatre of managed suffering. Israel still controlled the ports, crossings, and airspace, deciding what and who enters and exits. Israeli drones continued their patrols, more quietly, at least until their armaments scorched another hospital. Bureaucratic checkpoints were replaced by biometric screening, courteousy of the new EU-Israel-UN taskforce. You might say that the occupation was being sanitised as the legal order that had birthed and sustained zionism had reverted to restraining...
13 Feb When War Bets on Protest: Iran’s Civilians in a Double Bind
...to designate—and to lift—hostility for other states, regimes, and groups. It defines “operational action” and “information activity” by capability to endanger national security, ranging from killing and destruction to creating public fear and disrupting communications networks, information systems, and critical infrastructure. It then extends culpability well beyond classic intelligence-gathering: “assistance” can be framed across security, military, economic, financial, and technological domains, while the heaviest exposure attaches to weaponised toolsets—arms, drones, cyber disruption, and sabotage-adjacent conduct—once intent is characterised as cooperation with hostile actors. The law also pulls media circulation and...
27 Aug Attacking Foreign Bases in Self-Defence
...violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Cyprus, when its own military presence in Cyprus for 66 years following independence also has features of such a violation. If the safety of the Cypriot people were threatened by the drones, one could argue that it is largely because the British government placed these people in the path of war with its bases. The “de-escalation” that the statement calls for would appear to be achieved not by allowing the United States to use its bases, but, on the contrary, by removing...